SILVER LAKE COUGARWATC!H!!11!!

Back in January Rancho Palos Verdes residents got a scare and a slow news day got a boost when a mountain lion was reportedly seen roaming around over there. A search was initiated by authorities but no mountain lion was ever found.

Over at Franklin Avenue today Mike posts about getting an email from a resident in the section of Silver Lake east of Glendale Boulevard who says she and her husband saw a “mountain lion or a cougar,” while walking their dog this morning. The woman seems pretty certain of the species, but apparently is unclear on the fact that a cougar is a mountain lion.

It was on a hillside between two homes. It had a long body and a long tail and was quite large. It was above us and didn’t see us — so we just kept our distance. We reported it to animal services and the Wildlife Ranger will be investigating and hopefully posting warning signs.

But… I just wanted people to know and be aware. It was actually really amazing to see it, though we were at such a safe distance. The sighting was near the intersection of Silver Ridge Avenue and Lake View. The Wildlife Ranger said he thought it was most likely a Bobcat, but it looked more like a mountain lion or a cougar.

Well, she’s certainly described something that looks more cougar than bobcat, and given the evidence that a mountain lion had moved into Griffith Park ack in 2004, I suppose if the big cat hadn’t since moved on to other more remote parts of the Santa Monica range it’s not entirely out of the realm of possibility that the creature has been forced to broaden its turf in the wake of the park’s fire in May and the destruction that disaster wrought upon the food chain there.

So I’ll give the witness the benefit of the doubt and urge all to be careful out there with yourselves and your pets. And if it is a cougar let’s hope it heads back for the hills or at least not over to where this this dead-eye guy is in Orange County’s Rancho Santa Margarita.

I so call shenanigans on that. The only scenario would be that somehow a cougar from Griffith Park was forced down during the fire. If that was the case, we would be seing A LOT more missing dogs and cats than we can currently account for with coyotes.

She either saw a bobcat or maybe a hairy drunk rummaging for plastic bottles in trash cans.